Whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you. A citizenry which has learned that one short lesson has but little more left to learn. (Albert Jay Nock)

This lesson is in fact so important, it can determine whether you live or die. Let's look at one example that shows how the power given to the State to do things FOR the people, bacame the power to do things TO the people.

In 2011, Russian govenrment created a dgitital platform called the Federal State Information System, "Unified Portal of State and Municipal Services", often referred to as GovServices (Gosuslugi). The keyword here is the "Services" and that's what was advertised to the people.

A person no longer needed to go to various government offices to identify himself and stand in line in order to get whatever information or service he needed. Once registered and identified on the platform, everything could be done online, from setting up your doctor's appointment and requesting a benefit payment to getting a new passport. All user information and government services were centralized in one convenient place. Or so it seemed.

It sounded like a great service, finally the government did something FOR the people. And that's what many believed, so instead of fighting it, they embraced it. By the end of 2020, the platform had 126 million registered users (as of the 2021 census, the population of Russia was 147.2 million.)

In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and a few months later declared "partial draft". As a result, more than a million of young Russians, refusing to fight Putin's war (refusing to become Putin's cannon fodder), left Russia. At the time, a draft summons had to be served physically. There was no way for the border officer to check whether a person who was trying to leave the country had actually been served a draft summons, which would've prevented the person from leaving the country.

In 2023, the Russian State Duma passed legislation to change the nature of draft summons and how they are served. Now a summons is considered to be served once it appears on the government services portal, GovServices, in your personal account (yes, that same platform that was created FOR the people).

Failure to obey a draft summons would mean "ban on driving, registering a company, working as a self-employed individual, obtaining credit or loans, selling apartments, buying property or securing social benefits" and, more importantly - ban on leaving the country. Put simply, you became a slave with no rights and nowhere to run. Border officers had access to the platform GovServices and now could easily check whether you had been served wtih a draft summon. If you had, you could no longer leave the country.

That's how the power that people gave the State to do things FOR them, a few years later, turned into the deadly power of the State to do things TO them. People didn't have to register on the GovServices platform, that process was voluntary. But they did it anyway and by doing so, they gave the power to the State to do things TO them. Had most people refused to registered on the centralized government platfrom (GovServices), the legislation of 2023 would have been impossible because there would not have been a centralized platform through which the State could control people.

If you think this could only happen in totalitarian countries like Russia, you coudln't be more wrong. Ukraine has a pretty much identical platform. Their young men of the draft age, also cannot leave the country. And this is happening in all Western countries as well.

It's happening in the EU:

The EU Digital Identity will be available to EU citizens, residents, and businesses who want to identify themselves or provide confirmation of certain personal information. It can be used for both online and offline public and private services across the EU. (European Digital Identity)

And it's happenning in the US:

With a well-developed [US] digital ID system, individuals could access all their relevant identity documents in one place and use those documents to complete a wide range of activities that require identity verification. [...] digital ID comes with increased usability compared with physical ID [...] They would also simplify online transactions that require identity verification. (The Path to Digital Identity in the United States)

All these countries are follwoing in Russia's footsteps. They are using the same propaganda and manipulation (the same words) Russia used 13 yeras ago. They are trying to convince their people to give the State the power to do things FOR them. And just like with the example of Russian GovServices, this power sooner or later will be used by the State to do things TO people. After the medical tyranny of 2020-22 nobody should have any illusions about that.

That's why you have to fight against all government "digital ID" proposals as if your life and the life of your children depend on it. Because it literally does.